Biancamaria Fontana - Böcker

Why are republics the most common form of political organization, and the one most readily associated with modern democracy, when until the late eighteenth-century it was generally believed that republics could function only in small urban territories with considerable ethical and political cohesion? In The Invention of the Modern Republic a team of highly distinguished historians of ideas answers this question, and examines the origins of republican governments in America and Europe. These essays explain why from 1776 onwards republics took the place of monarchies as the dominant form of government in the modern world. Given the renewed interest in the functioning and evolution of democratic institutions (especially in their relation with market economies) the issues discussed in The Invention of the Modern Republic have a powerful contemporary resonance.

This book explores the sources of modern British liberalism through a study of the Edinburgh Review, the most influential and controversial early nineteenth-century British periodical. Founded by a group of young Scottish intellectuals in 1802, the Review served as a principal channel through which the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment gained wider currency, and did much to popularize the doctrines of economic and political reform. As Dr Fontana shows in this lucid and keen analysis, the first thirty years in the life of the Review clearly display the new social and economic problems confronting European society in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

This book explores the sources of modern British liberalism through a study of the Edinburgh Review, the most influential and controversial early nineteenth-century British periodical. Founded by a group of young Scottish intellectuals in 1802, the Review served as a principal channel through which the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment gained wider currency, and did much to popularize the doctrines of economic and political reform. As Dr Fontana shows in this lucid and keen analysis, the first thirty years in the life of the Review clearly display the new social and economic problems confronting European society in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

This 1988 book is an English translation of the major political works of Benjamin Constant, one of the most important of modern French political theorists and writers. A Swiss protestant by birth, Constant was a prominent figure in French political life in the aftermath of the revolution of 1789, and a leading member of the liberal opposition to Napoleon and, subsequently, to the restored Bourbon monarchy. His writings are widely regarded as one of the classical formulations of modern liberal doctrine, and Constant's own closeness to the Anglo-Saxon political tradition renders their translation into English particularly appropriate. The novel Adolphe has hitherto been Constant's only work freely available outside France, emphasising his importance within European Romanticism and his centrality to French literary development in the nineteenth century. This translation of Constant's political writings is replete with full editorial apparatus and bibliographic information that will enable anglophone students of liberal thought to engage at first hand with one of its most durable and influential exponents.

Why are republics the most common form of political organization, and the one most readily associated with modern democracy, when until the late eighteenth-century it was generally believed that republics could function only in small urban territories with considerable ethical and political cohesion? In The Invention of the Modern Republic a team of highly distinguished historians of ideas answers this question, and examines the origins of republican governments in America and Europe. These essays explain why from 1776 onwards republics took the place of monarchies as the dominant form of government in the modern world. Given the renewed interest in the functioning and evolution of democratic institutions (especially in their relation with market economies) the issues discussed in The Invention of the Modern Republic have a powerful contemporary resonance.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) is principally known today as a literary figure--the inventor of the modern essay and the pioneer of autobiographical self-exploration who retired from politics in midlife to write his private, philosophical, and apolitical Essais. But, as Biancamaria Fontana argues in Montaigne's Politics, a novel, vivid account of the political meaning of the Essais in the context of Montaigne's life and times, his retirement from the Bordeaux parliament in 1570 "could be said to have marked the beginning, rather than the end, of his public career." He later served as mayor of Bordeaux and advisor to King Henry of Navarre, and, as Fontana argues, Montaigne's Essais very much reflect his ongoing involvement and preoccupation with contemporary politics--particularly the politics of France's civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. Fontana shows that the Essais, although written as a record of Montaigne's personal experiences, do nothing less than set forth the first major critique of France's ancien regime, anticipating the main themes of Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire and Diderot.Challenging the views that Montaigne was politically aloof or evasive, or that he was a conservative skeptic and supporter of absolute monarchy, Fontana explores many of the central political issues in Montaigne's work--the reform of legal institutions, the prospects of religious toleration, the role of public opinion, and the legitimacy of political regimes.

Germaine de Stael (1766-1817) is perhaps best known today as a novelist, literary critic, and outspoken and independent thinker. Yet she was also a prominent figure in politics during the French Revolution. Biancamaria Fontana sheds new light on this often overlooked aspect of Stael's life and work, bringing vividly to life her unique experience as a political actor in a world where women had no place. The banker's daughter who became one of Europe's best-connected intellectuals, Stael was an exceptionally talented woman who achieved a degree of public influence to which not even her wealth and privilege would normally have entitled her. During the Revolution, when the lives of so many around her were destroyed, she succeeded in carving out a unique path for herself and making her views heard, first by the powerful men around her, later by the European public at large. Fontana provides the first in-depth look at her substantial output of writings on the theory and practice of the exercise of power, setting in sharp relief the dimension of Stael's life that she cared most about--politics.She was fascinated by the nature of public opinion, and believed that viable political regimes were founded on public trust and popular consensus. Fontana shows how Stael's ideas were shaped by the remarkable times in which she lived, and argues that it is only through a consideration of her political insights that we can fully understand Stael's legacy and its enduring relevance for us today.